


Child-friendly

by defractum (nyargles)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting Together, M/M, Modern Era, Oblivious Enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 17:23:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyargles/pseuds/defractum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras sees Grantaire being great with kids, realises he has feelings. Even if he can't figure out what those feelings are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Child-friendly

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for [yesjayplease](http://yesjayplease.tumblr.com/), who prompted: something involving grantaire being cute and adorable with kids and enjolras sees it he sort of just goes like MY HEART because it's just so cute and ughhh grantaire with kids uvu
> 
> This is absolutely not what you asked for I am sorry ;_;

The first time it happens, Enjolras dismisses it as a stomach ache. When Bossuet leans up out of his chair to reach for a napkin and Gavroche steals his chair, sending Bossuet crashing in an almighty sprawling heap, Enjolras looks over. "Eponine, keep him quiet, can't you?" he says with a note of annoyance, and slides straight back into his speech with barely a breath drawn.

Eponine glowers at him and Gavroche glares at him even more and Grantaire meanders over from where he's been getting a drink at the pub counter, slides into the chair next to Gavroche and leans over and whispers something into his ear. Gavroche snorts, but whispers back anyway.

When Enjolras doesn't hear a peep out of them for the rest of the meeting, he mostly forgets about the incident; it's only when he hands the reigns over to Combeferre to go over their various tasks for the next week that he looks over to see Gavroche and Grantaire's heads still bent close together. Grantaire has his sketchbook open and Gavroche is occasionally pointing and making comments.

Enjolras frowns, and presses a hand to his stomach, which feels a little odd. Perhaps he's had a bit too much coffee today. When the group starts to separate, Grantaire tears out the page in his sketchbook and hands it to Gavroche before he leaves.

The second time it happens, Enjolras assumes it's because it's because they've just started on a fundraising tour of workshops and seminars and he's stressed. Their next stop is at a community centre just after lunch; Enjolras stares at the crowd in despair and thinks that they should have anticipated this. There’s the usual group of university students and disillusioned unemployed, sure, but at least a third of the people standing in front of him are parents, holding children or _not_ -holding children or with buggies.

Enjolras starts in on his speech, and barely two minutes pass when one of the kids start laughing loudly and chattering. Enjolras waits for them to the parents to hush them or move out to the back and take care of them there, but it just… it just doesn’t happen. He carries on instead, raising his voice but the sudden volume raise just makes a couple of babies start wailing.

“Please, can we settle down?” Shooting his friends a quick, desperate stare, Enjolras carries on, because what other choice does he have? Except that people aren’t listening to him anymore, they’re frowning at him and staring at the noisy kids and whispering at them; their own kids are getting bored and fidgeting and what’s the _point_ of making his grand climax if they haven’t paid attention to all the points building up to it?

Suddenly, Grantaire appears at his side, windswept and slightly out of breath. Enjolras blinks, and the next time he pauses for breath, Grantaire pulls the mic away from him. “Apologies for the lateness, but our babysitting facility is now ready. Will anyone with children please direct them to the back of the hall? We’ll start again in ten minutes.” He smiles at the crowd, and everyone picks up on the cue, Courfeyrac and Combeferre shepherding parents and kids alike.

“Ten minutes?” asks Enjolras, slightly frazzled from losing his train of thought. “You just broke my momentum, what’re we going to do now?”

Grantaire smiles at him. “You’ll think of something, I’m sure.” Enjolras bites back a retort, one that’s just bubbling up uncontrollably because unlike usual, Grantaire’s actually not being mocking right now.

“You’re not going to win over any parents if you’re going to be horrible about their children,” says Grantaire and Enjolras _knows_ that, he just wants a chance to talk, uninterrupted, to the adults, the people who can make logical deductions and aren’t squalling masses of illogical chubbiness.

“We don’t even have a daycare facility,” says Enjolras instead, gripping his shoulder in thanks.

“You’re welcome.” Grantaire blows him a kiss. “We do now.” With that, he dashes off to help the parents, leaving Enjolras on the stage with eight minutes to rework his speech.

~

When they finish, Enjolras steps off the stage to applause. He lingers, talking with people to clarify or confirm their support or just hear their point of view. One of the mothers talks and walks at the same time, and Enjolras finds himself explaining their current campaign as they head out of the hall and into the room where they’ve apparently put all the kids. He wasn’t expecting anything more than Grantaire slumped in a corner as the kids run wild, but the room is almost completely silent when he walks in. Completely silent apart from Grantaire, that is.

A couple of the kids are in the corners, reading quietly, but most of them are grouped around Grantaire.

Grantaire’s pretending to be the purple dinosaur toy he’s holding up (Enjolras remembers it being called Bernie or Barmy or something) and doing a dead-on imitation of Enjolras’s voice. Lined up along the front of the room are also a plump teddy bear, a Barbie doll and a ragged stuffed cat toy with only three legs. The story he’s acting out is something to do with dragons and time travel, and the other three toys have the voices of Combeferre, Courfeyrac and himself respectively.

One of the mums tries to get her daughter to leave, and she protests, “Wait, five more minutes! I want to see the end!” Grantaire flicks the mother a quick apologetic look, and starts wrapping the story up.

Which is how Enjolras, the rest of Les Amis and two dozen parents wind up watching the last five minutes of Grantaire narrating the purple dragon’s time travelling shenanigans. Enjolras doesn’t care for these types of stories; they’ve never really made sense to him. Instead, he watches Grantaire as he nails each of their voices perfectly, and lets the funny roiling feeling in his stomach grow.

When he finishes, Grantaire takes a little bow to applause and laughter and redistributes all the borrowed toys, waving them off to their parents. “Well?” He says once they’re all finished and Les Amis are packing up and Grantaire spots Enjolras watching.

“Excuse me,” says Enjolras faintly. “I think I have to go throw up.” He walks away, but not so quickly that he misses the completely hurt expression on Grantaire’s face. He’ll apologise, later, he thinks – when his stomach doesn’t keep doing weird things and making him feel nauseous all the time.

Enjolras forgets.

Enjolras remembers that he’s forgotten when it’s a week later and he blinks, realising that he hasn’t seen Grantaire in the back of the hall watching him do his speeches on any of the three stops they’ve made in the last week. “Where’s Grantaire?” He asks at the end, glancing around and unable to see him at all. Surely he hadn’t skipped a meeting?

Combeferre blinks. “Probably still in the kids’ room?” He points vaguely off to another room.

They have a kids’ room now. Enjolras had just assumed that no one in the last three stops had brought any children with them. Instead, he opens the door to five or six of them at a table, draped over Grantaire and squealing as he draws things on command, half of the time over them.

"Apollo! How nice of you to grace us with your presence!" Grantaire's eyes don't entirely reach his eyes. "He's the one who's been talking to your parents about better lives for you lot, you know," he says to the children, and they all regard him carefully.

"He looks like a girl," says one of the kids.

"He does," says Grantaire. "And there is nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"Nope," the same kid says, and as their verdict has been delivered, the children as one turn around and ignore him again.

The kids eventually leave, each of them with a little personalised design up their hands or arms and Enjolras is fairly sure that if he looks closer, there would be a story behind each of them. Grantaire stands next to him as they wave the last little girl goodbye, and that's when the third time hits him. "I feel sick," mutters Enjolras under his breath so that none of the remaining people who came to hear him talk today can hear.

Grantaire scowls. "Well, sorry if it's not what you would –"

"No," says Enjolras, closing his eyes briefly and pressing his hand to his stomach, "I feel _sick_."

"Oh." Grantaire hustles Enjolras to a chair and peers at him instead. "Do you need the bathroom? Or a bucket?"

"Just... feels weird," says Enjolras. "It's happened a few times now." It's odd, he thinks. Every time has been when he's been looking at Grantaire.

"Doooo you want me to get Joly?" Grantaire asks. "We shouldn't have added all the extra stops. You were barely sleeping already."

"No, it doesn't – it just goes away after a while," says Enjolras, too tired to protest when Grantaire drags another chair over and tugs Enjolras to lie down, his head on Grantaire's lap.

Instead of going away though, the feeling just intensifies. The insides of his stomach clench, and his heartrate shoots up as Grantaire massages his shoulders. "Stop," he says eventually through gritted teeth and presses a hand over his face when he sees Grantaire's wounded look before he masks it. "I mean. Thanks. It's just not helping."

Enjolras pulls himself to his feet and shoves his hands in his pockets. "Also – thanks. For the daycare thing? I never would have thought of it."

"Sure you would have," says Grantaire, amused. "You just didn't have anyone to waste on childcare facilities because you want everyone else in the room helping to campaign."

Enjolras winces. "It's not like that."

Grantaire presses a hand on his shoulder and smiles as he takes his leave. "Yes it is."

~

The fourth time is when Enjolras figures it out. Grantaire's come out to join them at the next stop after the meeting. He's holding a chubby little toddler in his arms to reunite him with his dad and Enjolras feels a familiar surge of disgust, and thinks, _how cute._

 _What_.

" _Oh_ ," says Enjolras halfway through shaking someone's hand.

"Enjolras?" Combeferre, at his side, pauses during his introduction.

Enjolras blinks rapidly and refocusses on the person in front of him. "Nothing, apologies. It's great to meet you."

After the meet and greet (and he's glad he didn't walk away right then and there, because that man had been a local Headteacher and had wanted to discuss some ideas for promoting tolerance in his school), Enjolras walks up to Grantaire, trying to suppress different thoughts about tolerance and classism. "You," he says.

"Um?" says Grantaire.

Enjolras crooks a finger and walks off to a side-room. Grantaire follows. "Enjolras? What is it?"

"You," says Enjolras. "You make me sick."

Grantaire frowns and leans against a wall. "I – well, fuck you, Apollo."

"No," says Enjolras, suddenly very tired and wondering how he managed to be perfectly eloquent half a minute ago. "You made me _sick._ You remember?" He presses his hand to his stomach. "That feeling. That was you."

Grantaire shrugs defensively. "I – okay. Fine. What do you want me to do about it? I can go home and leave the tour if you want."

"No," says Enjolras, again, "I thought you made me sick. But it wasn't _sick_."

Grantaire's crossed his arms and is hunching in on himself. "Then what the fuck was it?"

"I don't know," says Enjolras. "Not sick?"

Pushing off the wall, Grantaire turns around. "Right, whatever. I'm just going to go now."

Enjolras reaches out and grabs Grantaire's arm. "No, no. Really not sick," he says, as if that clears anything up, and leans forward to kiss Grantaire.

"Mmmnfff," says Grantaire, and pushes him away. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and steps back with a wild look in his eyes. "What the fuck."

"Really, really, not sick?" Enjolras offers hopefully. He steps forward slowly, giving Grantaire plenty of time to run away, places one hand on Grantaire's waist and leans slowly forward to press his lips against Grantaire's again.

Grantaire's lips are chapped and rough, and stubble scratches across his skin. When Enjolras pulls back, Grantaire has his eyes screwed closed and he opens them slowly. He blinks, several times, eyes flitting all over Enjolras's face and smiles tentatively. "Not a dream then."

"No," says Enjolras, staying close enough that their noses brush. "Erm, children, I think."

"What?"

It had made sense in Enjolras's mind, but he's aware that he is being incoherent right now; he's just glad that Grantaire speaks such good Enjolras. "Children," he says, looking deep into Grantaire's eyes. "I hate children. They're so cute."

Grantaire smothers a laugh.

"You don't hate children," says Enjolras. "That's, that's. Really good."

"Oh, Apollo," Grantaire says fondly, and Enjolras presses a hand to his cheek.

"You made me feel sick," says Enjolras wonderingly, and leans forward for another kiss.

Grantaire snorts and holds a finger over his lips. "You know what. You are going to go back to your hotel room, and you are going to think this over. And then you are going to sit down and write a speech, like you write the speeches you've been giving for the last two weeks, because I know you can express yourself far, _far_ more eloquently than this. And then you are going to tell me something other than the fact that I make you feel sick. And _then_ you can kiss me again."

Enjolras pouts.

"Okay?"

"...'kay."

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](defractum.tumblr.com)!


End file.
